Oscillator, any of various electronic devices that produce alternating electric current, commonly employing tuned circuits and amplifying components such as thermionic vacuum tubes. Oscillators used to generate high-frequency currents for carrier waves in radio broadcasting often are stabilized by coupling the electronic circuit with the vibrations of a piezoelectric crystal, usually quartz.

Learn More in these related articles:

Circuits that can generate such oscillating currents are called oscillators; they include, in addition to transistors, such basic electrical components as resistors, capacitors, and inductors. As was mentioned above, resistors dissipate heat while carrying a current. Capacitors store energy in the form of an electric field in the volume between oppositely charged electrodes. Inductors are...

An oscillator can create an electrodeless discharge in gas at low pressure within a glass tube. The plasma so produced is now a commonly used source for mass spectrometers but was first used in plasma-emission spectrometry (optical and near optical). Samples are introduced by means of a carrier gas, typically argon, and ions result as from the direct-current arc but with very few molecular ions...

Mechanical oscillators have been made from silicon at dimensions of 10 × 100 nanometres, where more than 10 percent of the atoms are less than one atomic distance from the surface. While highly homogeneous materials can be made at these dimensions—for example, single-crystal silicon bars—surfaces play an increasing role at nanoscales, and energy losses increase, presumably...